Swallowtail Dragons are graceful and quick flyers, much like their namesake bird. They are capable of precise aerial acrobatics, and can reach very high altitudes. Because of this, humans observing these dragons are often astonished at how large they are when confronted up close. A Swallowtail’s diet consists of insects and small mammals plentiful in temperate forests. These dragons are also made remarkable by their paper-thin wing membranes, which allow light to pass through, creating an astonishing effect on starry nights.

Dragons are highly-intelligent reptilian creatures that—from a human perspective, at least—appear to live forever. Many different varieties of dragon exist, each with their own unique qualities, habitats, and behavior. Adolescence in dragons is usually marked by the growth of a hatchling’s wings, although not all breeds of dragons grow wings and some breeds have other traits that indicate the beginning of maturation. In Galsreim, dragons and humans coexist peacefully.

Swooptails is one of the oldest of the Swallowtails in his flock. He's lived his entire life in the very same cave near the top of Scatterfall Peak, a great western mountain that looms so tall, its top is almost never below the clouds.

Well. Less now, than it used to be. It's been a long time since the Great War swept the continent, Flameflow's violent grasp spreading across the fertile lands once governed by the Old Featherwing Weyr. Now, though, the plains that the Swallowtails used to hunt are guarded by Flameflow's stooges, and any who refuse to swear fealty are put to immediate death.

But Swooptails was a clever old thing. When the War came to Scatterfall Peak, Swooptails gathered his flock up, up, as high as they could fly, hiding above the clouds that hid the face of the mountain. He wasn't the only dragon to have such an idea, and in the next few years, Swooptails worked with the White dragon Snowfeathers to establish Scatterfall Peak as one of the Cities of Cloud and Snow.